Iran

White House spokesman Josh Earnest mocked Senator Tom Cotton as “an international man of mystery” this week. Earnest was alluding to Senator Cotton’s complaint regarding “secret side deals” that are integral to our catastrophic deal with Iran. Senator Cotton responds in this video compiling statements by administration officials, some of whom (unlike Earnest) are speaking unironically under oath. Video via The Right Scoop. »

AP Vienna bureau chief George Jahn reports: “Iran: US statements on attacking Tehran violates nuke deal” (subject-verb disagreement in the original, I hate to say). On Twitter, AP diplomatic correspondent Matt Lee concisely comments: “Already?!” Here is Jahn’s report: A senior Iranian official is accusing the U.S. of violating the nuclear deal with his country through comments indicating that the accord would make any attack on Tehran’s atomic program more »

Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee today, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin Dempsey put some daylight between himself and the Commander in Chief on the question of our options with Iran. President Obama, of course, serves up the choice as between the Iran deal (ineffective) or war (not gonna do it). General Dempsey, however, asserts that the United States has “a range of options” if it »

The Iran deal finances and otherwise facilitates Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons. It even sets up the United States and the other parties as protectors of Iran’s nuclear program. Why would President Obama want to do that? He seems to believe that Iran should play the role of “a very successful regional power.” If he believes that this is in the national interest of thee United States, he is a »

John Kerry testified today before the House Foreign Relations Committee about the Iran deal. I watched only a small portion of it. The debate, though very important, is becoming stale. For me, the most interesting moment occurred when Rep. Brad Sherman, a Democrat from California, asked Kerry whether, if Congress disapproves of the agreement and overrides President Obama’s veto of its disapproval, the administration would follow the law regarding what »

Below is the video of the Hudson Institute event held over the noon hour today in Washington, D.C. on the pending nuclear deal with Iran. Senator Tom Cotton keynoted the event. Senator Cotton’s address was followed by a stellar panel discussion including Michael Doran, William Tobey, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith. The embed code was graciously sent at my request by the Hudson Institute. I can only say that I »

Mike Huckabee is under attack for a comment he made about the Iran nuclear deal. Huckabee stated: This president’s foreign policy is the most feckless in American history. It is so naive that he would trust the Iranians. By doing so, he will take the Israelis and march them to the door of the oven. The comment is over-the-top for several reasons. First, it is too harsh. It’s Iran that »

Today at 12:15 p.m.(Eastern), Senator Tom Cotton will keynote the Hudson Institute event in Washington, D.C. on the pending nuclear deal with Iran. Senator Cotton’s keynote address will be followed by discussion featuring a stellar panel including Michael Doran, William Tobey, Hillel Fradkin, and Lee Smith. The event will be livestreamed via the video below once the program gets started. Until that time the video will feature Hudson’s most recent »

Last week, John wrote that Ted Cruz “crushed Code Pink” in an impromptu debate with its leader Medea Benjamin regarding Iran. He provided video of the confrontation so that readers could judge for themselves. Code Pink had tried to shout Cruz down during a campaign event. Cruz engaged them and decisively out-debated Benjamin. A few days later, Dave Weigel of the Washington Post decided to judge the debate. He scored »

Omri Ceren writes to comment on Jay Solomon’s Wall Street Journal article “White House says Iran unlikely to address suspicions of secret weapons program” (accessible here via Google. Omri writes: The WSJ gained access to some of the documents on the Iran deal that the administration filed with Congress to meet its obligations under the Corker legislation. Two of the documents – both of which are secret and one of »

I had never looked at the Ayatollah Khameini’s Twitter feed until this morning, when Drudge linked to it. Here is the Supreme Leader’s latest tweet, from earlier today: US president has said he could knock out Iran’s military. We welcome no war, nor do we initiate any war, but.. pic.twitter.com/D4Co7fVuVg — Khamenei.ir (@khamenei_ir) July 25, 2015 I take it that is President Obama. My own view is that we should »

If the long-term consequences of the administration’s Iran deal are murky, the short-term results are crystal clear: on Implementation Day, estimated to occur in a matter of months, sanctions against Iran will be lifted and Iranian assets that have been frozen abroad will begin to flow back to Tehran. This is, of course, why the mullahs made the deal. Sanctions imposed by the U.S., the E.U. and the U.N. have »

I wish there were any danger that Congress would reject the deal with Iran by the two-thirds majorities necessary to override President Obama’s veto under the Corker bill. Has the United States ever entered into such a fateful deal without popular support? I think the answer is no, and the lack of popular support may be the single most distinguishing feature of the Iran deal from the Munich Agreement. In »

From the time that the nuclear deal with Iran (minus the two side deals) was published, I’ve thought that it will receive substantial support from congressional Democrats. Even before the deal was reached, I assumed that Dems, by and large, would likely support it. They march pretty much in lockstep with the administration, especially on issues of vital importance to Obama. Once the details were made known, it seemed clear »

Lee Smith, writing for the Weekly Standard, accuses Secretary of State John Kery of “making stuff up” with respect to the nuclear deal with Iran. Smith (or the headline writer) is being polite. Kerry is flat out lying. Let’s look at some examples. First, having given up on “anytime, anywhere inspections,” Kerry now claims that this was never the administration’s position and that, in fact, the concept is unknown to »

I’m posting a video of Tom Cotton commenting on the side deals to the Iran agreement and a video of Senator Melendez at work in yesterday’s Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the deal following the footnotes in Omri Ceren’s email update: Happy Friday from Washington DC, where lawmakers will be wrapping up a half-week of hearings on the final JCPOA deal with Iran. As always there are three levels »